He should have said, “Fore!”
A hapless Veterans Day Parade organizer putting around in a golf cart plowed over an NYPD sergeant during yesterday’s march in Midtown — earning the officer a relentless ribbing from his fellow boys in blue.
“Really, who expects a flying golf cart?” Sgt. Brian Byrnes, 49, told The Post after the mishap, which left him pinned against pavement.
“The guy didn’t even yell ‘Fore!’ ”
The handsome cop got a taste of the rough just after noon, when he was escorting Mayor Bloomberg — himself a golf addict — up Fifth Avenue along with other members of the Manhattan South Task Force.
“It just seemed so surreal,” said the hard-nosed veteran, who has tangled with criminals for 13 years.
“I worked in The Bronx seven years,” he said at Bellevue Hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries.
“I get to Manhattan, and I’m on a parade route for the mayor. The last thing you expect is getting run over by a golf cart.”
Unbeknownst to Byrnes, a parade organizer was driving up behind him in an EZ Go golf cart, one of several legally authorized to drive on the street when being used by officials.
Around 36th Street, the cart smashed into him.
“I was walking about 10 feet from Mayor Bloomberg when I was struck in the back,” Byrnes recalled.
“It hit me, and I went face first on the concrete,” the sergeant said. “Then this guy hit the gas instead of the brake, and it drove up the middle of my body.”
The driver — a heavyset man in his 50s — got out and “looked concerned and very surprised,” Byrnes said. “He just said, ‘Oh, my God!’ ”
One of the cop’s fellow Finest yanked the key from the engine, and others jumped in to lift the cart off him.
Police then put the injured Byrnes in the cart and drove him to an ambulance at 34th Street.
“Once they knew I was OK, they were ribbing me the whole way,” he said. “The first thing over the radio was, ‘Got to be careful, those golf carts are dangerous.’ ”
The cop, who lives in Orange County with his wife and two sons, was treated for bruises to his ankles and hips.
The Police Department said the driver — whom it refused to identify — was not arrested or issued a citation after being questioned.
Additional reporting by Kirsten Fleming, Larry Celona, Jenny Miller and Sally Goldenberg